Sweden Day Trip from Copenhagen: Malmö, Lund & Hamlet's Castle

A Sweden day trip from Copenhagen is, for most first-time visitors, the 2-country tour: a coach north along the coast to Kronborg, Hamlet’s castle at Helsingør, the ferry across the Øresund to Helsingborg, Lund Cathedral, free time in Malmö, and home over the Øresund Bridge in about nine hours. On GetYourGuide it is from US$138 a person, rated 4.7 from 4,774 reviews (checked October 2026). The calendar is on this page; bring a passport, which the tour asks every traveller to carry for Sweden.

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Prices and ratings from GetYourGuide, checked October 2026; operators change prices, so treat them as a guide, not a quote.

What the day covers

The tour runs as a loop, in this order:

• Kronborg, about an hour. The coach takes the coast road, Strandvejen, north to Helsingør. The stop is on Kronborg’s ramparts, outside the castle, about a 10-minute walk from the coach.
• Helsingør, about an hour and a half of free time. The old town’s streets, the harbour, the Culture Yard (Kulturværftet) and the statue Han.
• The ferry to Sweden. The crossing of the Øresund from Helsingør to Helsingborg is included.
• Lund. A visit to Lund Cathedral, and the small streets behind it, with houses from the 1700s.
• Malmö. Free time in the centre and a photo stop at the Turning Torso, Malmö’s twisting 190-metre tower.
• Home over the Øresund Bridge. The crossing back to Copenhagen is included too.

Commentary comes through an audio guide in English, Spanish or Italian. Castle entry and lunch are not included, and the coach is not accessible for wheelchair users. The tour page has who it suits.

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Hamlet’s castle, from the outside

Kronborg is the castle Shakespeare called Elsinore. Frederik II built it between 1574 and 1585, and it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000. On the 2-country day you see it from the ramparts outside, looking across the Sound to the Swedish shore. Going inside is a separate ticket: kronborg.dk lists DKK 150 at the door and DKK 135 online for an adult, with children free (October 2026). From November to the end of December 2026 the castle is closed on Mondays. Kronborg Castle tickets covers the ticket, what it includes, who gets in free and the tours that take you inside.

The ferry and the bridge

The crossing to Sweden is the shortest of all: Øresundslinjen’s ferry takes 20 minutes from Helsingør to Helsingborg, with departures every 20 minutes. The way home is the longest: the Øresund link between Copenhagen and Malmö runs 15.9 km, a 4,050-metre tunnel, the artificial island of Peberholm and the 7,845-metre bridge, which opened on 1 July 2000. The Helsingør-Helsingborg ferry has the fares if you cross on your own.

Lund and Malmö in brief

Lund is the older of the two. Its cathedral was consecrated in 1145, and the astronomical clock inside plays at 12:00 and 15:00 from Monday to Saturday and at 13:00 and 15:00 on Sundays, so a stop at either hour is a stop with music. Lund University was founded in 1666. Lund from Copenhagen covers the cathedral and the old town.

Malmö is 10 to 15 minutes south of Lund by train. The squares of the old town, Stortorget and Lilla Torg, are a short walk from each other, Malmöhus castle sits in its park, and the Turning Torso rises in the Western Harbour. The Malmö day trip weighs the tour against a train day there.

Or take the train yourself

Malmö is easy on your own. Trains leave Copenhagen Central Station every 20 minutes and reach central Malmö in about 35 minutes, by Visit Copenhagen’s figures, and DSB lists an adult single at DKK 96 (October 2026). What is harder by yourself is the loop: the old Øresund round-trip ticket that once covered the ferry has not been sold since 1 January 2024, so a train-and-ferry circuit means buying the trains and the ferry separately. Skånetrafiken’s Turistbiljett Öresund, SEK 599 for 48 hours in the app, covers trains in Skåne and on the Danish side of the Sound but not the ferry.

That is the honest split. For Malmö alone, the train is cheaper and gives you more time in the city. For Kronborg, the ferry, Lund and Malmö in one day, the tour does the planning that the trains, the ferry and a castle 45 minutes north of Copenhagen would otherwise take.

Your passport

The tour asks every traveller to bring a passport, and warns that a traveller without one gets back to Copenhagen at their own expense. Sweden has border controls in force on arrivals from Denmark, set to 11 November 2026 and open to extension, according to the Swedish Police. Passports from Copenhagen to Malmö explains which documents work.

If you would rather stay in Denmark

The Sweden day sees Kronborg only from outside. For the castles themselves, the Kronborg, Frederiksborg and Roskilde tour includes a guided visit inside Kronborg, Frederiksborg in Hillerød and Roskilde Cathedral with the Viking Ship Museum, with entry fees and hotel pickup, at from US$208 a person (checked October 2026). For Roskilde and how Kronborg compares with Frederiksborg, vikingshipmuseumroskilde.com covers both in depth.

Where to stay

The 2-country tour leaves from beside Copenhagen Central Station, so the hotels around the station and in Vesterbro next to it put you a short walk from the start. Trains to Malmö and Helsingør leave from the same station.

Hotels near Central Station Hotels in Vesterbro

How these facts were checked

Written 30 October 2026. The tours’ prices, ratings, review counts, routes and inclusions are from the GetYourGuide listings, read in US dollars on 30 October 2026. Kronborg’s prices, hours, building dates and the walk from the station are from kronborg.dk, and the World Heritage listing from UNESCO; the ferry’s crossing time and frequency from Øresundslinjen; the Øresund link’s lengths and opening date from Øresundsbron; the train fare from DSB and the journey time from Visit Copenhagen; the end of the round-trip ticket and the Turistbiljett Öresund from Skånetrafiken; the border controls from the Swedish Police; Lund Cathedral’s dates and clock times from the cathedral’s own pages at Svenska kyrkan, and the university’s founding from Lund University; the Turning Torso’s height from HSB, its owner. All read in October 2026.